FAT CATS AT KETRACO ROBBED KENYAN TAX PAYER BILLIONS IN FRAUDULENT LAND COMPENSATIONS

A parastatal under the ministry of energy (KETRACO) is under the spotlight once more, this after it emerged that officials working within the body colluded with outsiders and inflated land compensation figures by up to seven times the actual amount.   The latest scandal comes just a few months after The Weekly Vision published another scandal involving loss of funds running into billions in a cooked up story about vandalism of underground cables. The actual a mount that the Kenyan tax payer lost is Ksh. 1.1 billion. In that particular case KETRACO paid a contractor twice for the same work done, the contractor (SIEMENS) was paid to repair a high voltage 220kV underground cable. The same company had installed the cables just a few months earlier. The cable subsequently suffered four major acts of vandalism inside the Nairobi National Park. The total cost of the repairs after energization was €8.1 million (Sh944 million) KETRACO CEO Farnandes Barasa The Weekly Vision made attempts and reached out to KETRACO for reactions over this story. A spokesman for the ministry could neither confirm nor deny. The report  in our possession indicate that  Kenya Electricity Transmission Company (KETRACCO) illegally inflated compensation for land by up to seven times the actual cost for the way leaves for  the Loyiangalani/Suswa transmission line. The cost was inflated by a massive Sh12 billion for land compensations in a case that we suspect could not have been possible without the involvement of crooked land speculators and surveyors.   This act alone, made the cost of land acquisition to shoot up to 41 percent of the Sh30.4 billion it cost the government to construct the line.  The cost of the 428 km 400Kv transmission line is quoted as Euro 142 million (Sh17.8 billion), which works out to Ksh 42 million a kilometre. The actual budget for transmission and distribution is Ksh. 277 billion. At Sh42 million a kilometre, this budget outlay is the equivalent of 6,600 kilometres of 400Kv transmission lines, 60 percent more than all the transmission lines built and under construction over the past decade.